For those not savvy in sales tactics and persuasion, bargaining is, to many, at best a hassle. The bargaining process discourages many potential buyers and sellers from engaging in transactions that require “haggling”. Evidence of this is the proliferation of advertisements for “no-hassle pricing” in industries which traditionally use the bargaining process, such as automobile sales.
Even for those who are not adverse to bargaining, there is no system or method for engaging in a bargained transaction in an automated environment. In on-line systems, there are “reverse auctions”, such as the process established by Priceline®, and there are many online auctions such as E-Bay®. There are, however, no systems devoted to the process of multi-round automated bargaining to efficiently reach the best price in a given transaction. As such, parties to a transaction do not get the best price or a transaction fails because no price is acceptable to one or both of the parties in the transaction.
What is needed is a system that allows parties to engage in bargaining for the best price in a given transaction and without the impediments of party discomfort. The present invention is based on the premise that a bargained transaction allows parties on opposite sides of a transaction to reach a price most acceptable to both. Additionally, those who are adverse to “haggling for price” need a system to engage in a bargained transaction without the discomfort traditionally associated with such bargaining. The invention is also based on the understanding that many more market transactions would be consummated if there were a system which opposed parties to find a price acceptable to both.